(Address given by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S. President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame, at The Eisenhower Centennial Space Roundtable, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 4, 1990)
A VISION OF SPACE
I am delighted to have been invited by Karl Harr, Senior
Fellow of the Eisenhower World Affairs Institute, to deliver this
keynote address at the Conference on Space Policy. When I was much
younger, in the early fifties, I found that it was an easy and
quite natural transition to move from aviation buff to space buff.
The imaginative books of Willy Ley and the burgeoning volume of
science fiction books captured the imagination of millions, mine
included.
My academic specialties were philosophy and theology,
seemingly a far cry from the new vision of space. Not so, as I
hope to demonstrate to you this morning. Science and technology
look to immediate problems and solutions. Philosophy and theology
look to ultimates, stimulating creative imagination a-nd,
ultimately, a vision that transcends the immediate concerns of the
here and now. When President Eisenhower invited me to join the .. National Science Board in 1954, I told him that he must be
mistaking me for someone else. "No," he said, "I want a
philosophical and theological point of view represented on the
National Science Board."
When a few years later, Det Bronk, our Board Chairman, and
Alan Waterman, the National Science Foundation's Director, came
from a meeting with President Eisenhower, they announced to us a
momentous decision. As part of the United States participation in
the International Geophysical Year, we were to launch a scientific
satellite into space, a program named Vanguard. My heart jumped
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and even sang at the thought: The Space Age was about to begin.
I mention this incident because it underlines the appropriateness
of this Eisenhower Centennial Conference on Space Policy.
Because we are endowed, beyond all other earthly creatures,
with those two godlike qualities of intelligence and freedom, human
kind has been a curious, wondering and wandering species, always
questioning what lurked beyond the next hill and wandering there to
find out. All manner of mysteries have always intrigued us, for we
were meant to discover and to understand and to know. The most
insistent and important question of every human child is ''Why?"
Even a child wants to explore everything it sees.
The history of exploration has important lessons for us today,
as we hesitate on the verge of a great adventure in space for
humankind. From whatever place humankind first began, probably
Africa, he moved to see and to learn more and so better to pit his
wits against the natural obstacles he faced. Over millennia, human
kind explored the face of the earth and wondered at what he faced
nightly in the splendor of the sky: heavenly bodies sparkling in
the black void of space and beckoning to us.
Some of these prehistoric human wanderings typify the restless
questing of human spirit. About twelve thousand years ago, humans
dared to cross a dried up Bering Strait during the recent Ice Age.
They walked into our then uninhabited Western Hemisphere, but most
of them did not stay in Alaska. Ten thousand years later, they
were at Tierra del Fuego, at the other extremity of the hemisphere.
Once the adventurous trek began, it did not stop until it arrived
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at land's end.
Another segment of humanity were not stopped at land's end in
Asia. They learned sailing and navigated by the stars to explore
and to people widespread islands from Southeast Asia to Hawaii.
They traveled and they learned as long as there were new worlds to
inhabit.
The classic Age of Exploration stemmed from two great
civilizations: Asian and European. The Chinese built seagoing
vessels that eventually reached the cost of Southern Africa. One
wonders how the world might have changed if they kept on exploring.
But, troubled by domestic problems at home, they returned to the
Middle Kingdom and destroyed their seagoing ships.
The hardy Vikings made a second historical landing on the
Western Hemisphere which they call Vinland because of the grapes
growing there. That great find also dried on the vine because of
lack of imaginative interest in the new World.
When the Italian sailor and navigator, Cristoforo Columbo,
armed with an austrolabe, a new instrument of celestial navigation,
sought funds from Spanish King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to
explore the Western Ocean, all he got were three small, leaky ships
to test the winds and waves and shores unknown. Even those who
dared to join him were constantly imploring him to turn back. But
his daring, courage, and especially his vision drove him forward.
His discovery of a New World changed the face of the Old World
immensely and for all time.
In this century, the conquest of the until then inaccessible
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North and South Poles, the depths of the oceans, and the heights of
the Himalayas, seemed to bring an end of the Age of Exploration,
with no more shining goals for our questing spirit. Then on
October 4, 1957, there came from space the eerie beeping of
Sputnik, following soon, thanks to the genius of Von Braun, the
beeping of Explorer I. Cosmonaut Gargarin was following by
Astronaut Glenn and the space race was on. Explorat~on had a new
and exciting rebirth.
One must concede at this point that the enormously generous
spending that characterized the first decades of our National
Aeronautical and Space Agency and the Soviet program were in large
measure spurred on by the military challenges and national pride
born of the Cold War, both here and in the Soviet Union. When the
National Science Board first considered the organization of NASA,
we strongly suggested that it should be a civilian agency headed by
a civilian, Jim Webb, a former member of our Board. And so it was,
but inevitably, given the political climate here and in the USSR,
the military applications were immediately latched upon and most of
the wonderful astronauts came from military careers. The most
difficult political, and philosophical, question facing us today
is: absent the Cold War and the overhanging threat of mutually
assured destruction, will the potential benefits to humankind
everywhere continue to drive space exploration, discovery and
development, or will we renew the experience of the Chinese and
Viking explorers or the penurious attitude of the Spanish monarchs
who paradoxically were immeasurable rewarded for their stingy
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response to Cristofaro Columbo.
I submit that we will not move forward into space without
compelling motives, bold and creative ideas, and the deep
conviction that a new world is dawning. We can welcome or reject
it, but first, let us try to understand this new challenge of space
and its many implications for the future of humankind on this
planet.
I take as our most compelling symbol, the most intriguing
photograph of all times, the portrait of Plant Earth, a veritable
jewel shining in the darkness of outer space, blue, and brown, and
flecked with white clouds, the human habitat of incomparable
beauty.
What does it say to us? I will suggest five important
messages. First, as we contemplate earth from the moon, it gives
no indication of the many divisions that have separated us humans
here on earth, differences and divisions that have all too often
divided our one earth and human habitat into factions that have
spawned an incredible centuries-long series of wars and injustices.
One sees in this vision of one earth no territorial political
boundaries, no religious, political, or ethnic differences, just
one earth, beautiful and tranquil as it whirls around the sun each
year, not too close to the sun and yet not too far away either. Is
not this vision laden with other philosophical and theological
implications: that like Planet Earth, humankind is one and
potentially more beautiful than our past human history has
indicated; that we survive together or perish together in this
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unitary habitat, sharing the same hospitable climate, the air, the
water, the land and, more significantly, the yearnings for
knowledge, freedom, peace, development, and a civilization marked
by justice, not the wars that injustice spawns? This beautiful
vision of our only human habitat underlines the interdependence
that does and should characterize our globe and our lives upon it.
It is a great gift of God to each and all of us. It is ours to use
with responsible and reverent stewardship, to pass on to succeeding
generations of humans of every kind, whatever their race, current
nationality, language, or color. The challenge here is to create
a human spiritual unity of understanding and justice that matches
the physical beauty of the planet that is a pure gift to us, to use
it together not to abuse it separately. This is the message heard
from Bethlehem that first Christmas eve: Peace on earth to men of
good will.
Secondly, as we have learned from that first great scientific
and technological exploratory accomplishment, the grand tour of our
solar system from the sun to neptune, our planet earth is
absolutely unique: in its climate so hospitable to life of all
sorts, including human; in its salubrious clean air, pure liquid
water, vast oceans, lakes, and rivers, and earth upon which to grow
the food that sustains all life. True, we have vast tracts of arid
and semi-arid lands, too, but it does not require unusual
imagination to see how these too, as demonstrated in the Negev, can
be converted to our need for good through innovative agricultural
technology. Again, there is the promise of the Old Testament: the
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deserts will bloom.
There are other physical wonders, as we have learned from
this newborn space technology. We are constantly and massively
being bombarded by deadly cosmic rays from outer space. Explorer
I, rudimentary as it was, discovered the Van Allen magnetic belts,
a wondrous shield that covers us as a skin covers an apple, coming
to earth as an apple skin does at the stem and the bottom, in this
case, at the magnetic poles, North and South. I once stood in a
research hut at McMurdo Sound in the Antarctic. We were in a small
unprotected atmospheric funnel near where the Van Allen belt comes
to earth. We had a small metal table there, hooked up to a
scintillometer that recorded each cosmic ray impact on that small
metal table top. It registered a thousand impacts every six
seconds. Under the table was a foot thick insulation of lead, with
another metal place underneath the lead. Even there, each second
there were multiple impacts of particles charged with 10,000
electron volts. The Van Allen belts, protecting us from these
cosmic rays, are another pure gift to our plant earth.
Then there is the ozone layer which intercepts noxious
ultraviolet rays. Also, we have long known of the marvelous
balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide in our atmosphere: We breath
oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide; forest and plant life do the
opposite. Then again, there is our cloud cover which permits
enough heat and light from the sun to promote photosynthesis for
plant growth, with enough heat escaping so that our climate is
salubrious, our seasons regular and our ice cover at the poles
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intact, our ocean levels stable.
Fortunately for us, space exploration arrived in time to
underline for all the earth's inhabitants in stark detail, what we
are now doing, largely due to our profligate use of energy from
hydrocarbon fuels, to destroy, possibly irreversibly, most of these
unearned physical blessings, unique to our Plant Earth. Thanks in
large measure to Landsat, we know that we are destroying our
oxygen--carbon dioxide life balance by destroying and burning our
tropical forests worldwide, multi-millions of acres each year.
Greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluro
carbons are pumped into our atmosphere to pollute our air and
adding cover to prevent sufficient heat from being radiated from
the planet's surface, the greenhouse effect. The CFC's rise to the
ozone layer where this stable compound is broken into ~ts
constituent elements. One molecule of chlorine destroys one
hundred thousand molecules of ozone. Already our ultraviolet ozone
shield almost disappears each Winter in the Antarctic and now
partially in the Arctic. The depletion of the shield is moving
North and South from the poles. Who knows how to replace it? And
remember that it takes fifteen years for this to happen. If all
this has happened already, think of what will happen when the last
fifteen years supply of CFC's arrive. Meanwhile, Landsat programs
are falling by the wayside as we dilly-dally about the use of CFC's
in refrigeration, air conditioning, and spray cans. Fortunately,
we have not found a way of destroying the Van Allen belts, but we
are certainly doing our best to make our air unbreathable, our
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water undrinkable, and our land unproductive, mainly through
industrial pollution. At least the image of Plant Earth reminds
us of what we have been given as a heritage of all humanity, to
have and to hold, not to pollute and destroy.
I believe the space program has a solution to this worldwide
problem. The Industrial Revolution was built on energy. Our
enlarged quality of life also depends on energy at every step of
progress and development. But at the heart of the environmental
problem is the production of energy from hydrocarbons -- oil, gas,
coal, and wood, and even they are non-renewable, except wood, and
at the present rate of use, one can speculate about their future
availability. In a work, we need a new massive inexhaustible
source of energy -- aside from hydroelectric, tides, wind and
thermal water sources, hardly sufficient. I pass over nuclear
energy while simply saying that there is all too little current
research to make it safer. But then there is the sun, the one
source of all our energy.
Despite the enormous technological problems involved, I
believe we can, without science fiction, visualize a large solar
array in geocentric high orbit (about 22,300 miles above the earth)
that would convert solar energy into electrical energy at no cost,
beyond maintenance, once the system is deployed. Three such arrays
could collect inexhaustible energy around the clock, irrespective
of earth's seasons, night and day. Impossible? So was landing men
on the moon and bringing them home safely fifty years ago. Space
invites us to dream.
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Thirdly, the serenity of the photo of Planet Earth invites us
to dream about ways that we inhabitants of this habitat of mankind
might truly become united in human development. To use a space
metaphor, reduce the five billion plus people on earth to five
persons, astronauts traveling in a space ship. Imagine that one of
them, representing us in the developed world, had possession of 80%
of the life resources aboard that space craft, and the other four,
representing the rest of the world's inhabitants, had to share the
20% of the resources left, 5% each. It is difficult to conceive of
this as a situation of justice and peace. But this is precisely
the situation in our world today. I take life resources here to
translate into food, housing, education, health care, gainful and
satisfying employment, communications, transportation, and all that
is involved in the pursuit of happiness in its spiritual and
material aspects.
Time does not permit me to discuss how the space program would
enable us to address all of these problems, but let me speak to one
in which I have been engaged all of my life, education. A measure
of the problem is that today about 400,000 students come to America
from all over the world because we have the best educational system
on earth. Suppose we could bring our educational system to every
country on earth. Impossible? No more than upclose pictures of
all the planets, save Pluto, in our solar system was impossible,
just a few years ago.
What it would involve is simply three geocentric satellites
positioned to transmit, line of sight, to all the world. What
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would they transmit?
All of human knowledge, in the principal world languages,
presented by the best teachers of each subject, from three (it
could be done with one) world libraries. Since a disk can now
contain the whole Encyclopedia Britannica, collecting and storing
the lectures is no great problem. As to transmission, even with
illustrations and texts, the technology is practically available
today. Every ground receiver would be a school, in a remote
village, wherever. There could be a University of the World, a
phone book, indicating the call numbers for subject matter,
intellectual level, and language. The very best teachers would
teach everyone who wants to learn anything.
Eliminated are the costs of preparing teachers (although local
student aides would be useful) building schools and libraries, and
scheduling classes (24 hour service). Given that over a billion of
today's world inhabitants are illiterate, that cultural enjoyment
is limited to the large metropolises, that so many humans lead
unskilled lives of meaningless boredom, why not share the best of
cultural events that we and other developed nations enjoy with all
the world? That would add new cultural beauty and indeed justice,
to our vision of Planet Earth from afar. Incidentally, I would
eliminate sitcoms from this satcom system.
Fourthly, while much that I have derived from the space image
of earth may seem to involve our country doing things for others
(nothing wrong with that), I would see the space vision of the
future as a new world doing good things, for the good of the earth
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and all of its inhabitants, together. Interdependence is
best realized by international cooperation, making the earth a
better place for all, with everyone involved (as in education and
learning and growing) as much as possible. It used to be thought
insidious or revolutionary or unpatriotic or worse to speak of one
world -- but if you look at us from the moon, that is what we are.
One of the great visions of the space program is that it has shown
us earthlings the truth about ourselves in one picture. This·is
the picture, not of the century, but of all human time on earth. I
Thank God, we have seen it before we blew ourselves and our earth
into a lifeless cratered planet like Mars. If we are unique in our
solar system, we are unique for a purpose, I believe, and that is
to make our planet as materially and spiritually beautiful up
close, as it appears from afar.
This inner commitment to work together to beautify the earth
need not involve shedding our nationality, race, or religion. It ..
does involve seeing all of these in perspective. I am all that I
am, however different from others on earth, but something more. I
am a proud American. I was born here. But beyond and even perhaps
transcending that, I also declare myself a citizen of Plant Earth,
committed to the great vision of what it still may be, for the good
of all its inhabitants, my brothers and sisters.
Fifthly and finally, I would broach a difficult question,
often scorned, ridiculed, and denigrated, but nonetheless,
important to us because we are intelligent and questing for the
vast knowledge that may yet exist in space. This is the matter of
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the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Much of what
I now say, I have said before in introducing an early volume of
NASA on SETI. It is more theological than what I have said
heretofore, but no less interesting, I trust.
There are a few questions that more excite the curiosity, the
imagination and the exploratory bent of modern man that the one
posed in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Are
we humans alone in this vast universe? The question is usually
expressed in terms of other possible intelligent being, not
necessarily humans, on other planets. The philosopher in me would
want to believe that if there are other intelligent beings, they
are also free, and will use that freedom to try to find us. The
basic problem to which this study is addressed is similar: Will we
use our freedom to find them? What priority should this search
have for modern men and women, everywhere?
Few would disagree with the proposition that we are living in
a truly revolutionary age, inaugurated by Sputnik and the first
trip to the Moon. In another such age the Copernican -- the
prevailing religious or theological thought resisted, with the then
current wisdom, the proposition that the Sun and the Universe did
not rotate around the Earth. They mistakenly believed that man was
the center of the Universe, and that astronomy should reflect that
anthropocentric belief. They may ultimately be right about man,
though not about astronomy, if we do not every find intelligent
life elsewhere in the Universe. However, we should not be
predisposed to accept the proposition that we indeed are alone and
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unique as creatures possessing intelligence and freedom in this
whole vast Universe.
I must now mention God -- otherwise quite properly unmentioned
in scientific studies -- and must go a step further and pose the
question: Can a religious person, or even more, a theologian,
possibly be legitimately involved in, even be excited by these
discussions of the possibility of other intelligent and free
creatures out there?
Some time ago, I was discussing this subject with a Russian
lawyer who regarded me with some surprise and asked: "Surely you
must abandon your theology when you consider these possibilities?"
"Indeed, I don't,'' I replied. "It is precisely because I believe
theologically that there is a being called God, and that He is
infinite in intelligence, freedom and power, that I cannot take it
upon myself to limit what He might have done.'' Once he created the
Big Bang and there had to be something, call it energy,
hydrogen, or whatever, to go bang -- He could have envisioned it
going in billions of directions as it evolved, including billions
of life forms and billions of kinds of intelligent beings. I will
go even further. There conceivably can be billions of universes
created with other Big Bangs or different arrangements.
Why limit Infinite Power or Energy or Intelligence which are
names of God? We should get some hint from the almost, but not
quite, infinite profusion of the Universe we still know only in
part. Only one consideration is important here regarding creation.
Since God is intelligent, however He creates -- "Let there be
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light" -- Bang -- or otherwise, whatever He creates is a cosmos and
not a chaos since all His creation has to reflect Hirn. What
reflects Him most is intelligence and freedom, not matter. "We are
made in His image." Why suppose that He did not create the most of
what reflects Him the best. He certainly made a lot of matter.
Why not more intelligence, more free beings, who alone can seek and
know Him?
As a theologian, I would say that this proposed search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is also a search for knowing
and understanding God through His works -- especially those works
that most reflect Him.
knowing Him better.
Finding others than ourselves would mean
I do not think that the question that faces our conference is
whether or not space will be explored. The question is whether our
blessed country will take an imaginative, creative, and visionary
part in the newest and greatest exploratory venture that has ever
beckoned humankind. I hope we will and I think we should,
especially in the context of what you have listened to, so
graciously.
Thank you very much.
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